Up to this point I've installed 98SE on everything Pentium and up... and didn't really give 95 all that much thought due to previous attempts to install it on things and facing numerous BSODs and stability issues.
But after I installed 98SE on my Toshiba laptop with a PMMX 166, I started getting very irritated with the IE-integrated shell. I realized that I shouldn't be able to perceptably see the icons in the file manager pop up one by one as if they were loading over the LAN. It was a fresh install so I figured, what the heck, why not try 95 again. After all, that was the original OS that came with this machine.
I was surprised. Installed fine... no issues there. Had to download and install drivers that 98SE had out of the box, but that's OK. Installing XUSBSUPP was only slightly harder than installing NUSB, but it works fine.
Connecting to WiFi was as easy as in 98SE, with my Orinoco PCMCIA card. Bada boom, bada bing, and I'm on the LAN. Web browsing is - and I never thought I'd say this - fast with Internet Explorer 3.0. I hear a lot of crap about IE 4, so I'm not messing with that. Netscape Navigator 3.04 also works just as well. The system boots up quickly and logs on in an instant. I was able to install WMP 6.4 and some codecs and play MP3s and OGG files from my music library. Network shares also work just fine; I can copy files from my Linux laptop. DOS compatibility is excellent; I even get pretty good wavetable sound with the built-in OPL3-SAx card. The APM was automatically detected and I can manage the battery or put the computer to sleep, etc. Installing MS Office 2000 updated a lot of the system files without resulting in any noticeable performance hit, and now I can run software like 7-Zip.
Attempts to run software such as newer web browsers (Firefox 2.0, I'm looking at you) result in ridiculous system slowdowns comparable to what I'd get with 98SE running the same software. Software bloat is real!
I guess this hardware was designed to be running Windows 95. As such, it works quite well indeed. My only complaints have to do with the UI lacking some features I commonly use... such as "open with" in the context menu for a file, or an obvious way to change file associations. I've heard about TweakUI, perhaps it can help with that.
I have a Thinkpad A20m coming in the mail today. I'll probably be installing 98SE on it... but this experience has tempted me greatly to also have a partition for Windows 95, to see just what I actually gain from running 98SE, besides programs that don't support 95.
Tweak UI is part of the Windows Power Toys package, which added a lot of shell functionality that became standard later on. I don't remember if Open With was part of that, but I do remember installing it as a matter of course on builds back then.
Yep Win95 is the recommended OS of choice for socket 7 and below and Win98 kicks in after that point.
IE5 is faster and doesn't bog down the system like IE4 but not sure it really offers any benefits over IE3 I wouldn't call it a necessary upgrade.
TweakUI 1.33 is the powertoy your after, and its getting hard to find! http://www.iancowley.co.uk/down.shtml
I don't remember it adding open with options, it did allow modifying the send to entries though
TweakUI 1.33 is the powertoy your after, and its getting hard to find! http://www.iancowley.co.uk/down.shtml
I don't remember it adding open with options, it did allow modifying the send to entries though
Ah, nice! Just installed this on my new Thinkpad as well. Seems to work well.
I should mention as an aside that running the "Revenge of Mozilla" utility on the new 98SE installation my Thinkpad actually made the experience much more like Windows 95, by gutting the IE shell integration and reverting to the Windows 95 explorer.exe. I like it so far.
I recently found a CD-R that I made back in the Win9x days. I had written my own auto-run program in VB that had all my driver and application archives available from a categorized menu. I used to put a lot more effort into those things than the unceremonious dumping of crap onto a NAS that I do now. 😉 Anyway, I'm going to have to go through it and find all the old gems that have been lost to the winds since then. I'm sure I have Power Toys and a bunch of essential Win 95 updates and the like on there.
Yep Win95 is the recommended OS of choice for socket 7 and below and Win98 kicks in after that point.
Agreed. I've toyed around with Win98 on occasion on pre-Pentium II machines and it always is quite noticeably sluggish. Almost always on these same machines, Windows 95 speeds along like a champ and is just as stable I find (that'll probably vary a bit from person to person I'm sure, but I've never noticed a difference personally ... could just be good luck I suppose ... *shrug*).
SirNickity wrote:
I had written my own auto-run program in VB that had all my driver and application archives available from a categorized menu.
🤣 Are you me? I used to do this too, haha. I got a real kick out of showing it off to friends (who couldn't have cared less about it, heh). I used to do this with CD-RW's though, as I'd periodically update. It was also for practical reasons too. My parents were divorced and I mainly lived with my dad out in the middle of nowhere with only dial-up internet. At some point around 1999/2000 or so, my mom (who lived in the city) got cable internet and so downloading large programs, games, etc obviously became quite a bit easier and in this era before USB flash drives were commonplace, the easiest way to transfer files to bring them back home with me was updating my "common programs and tools" CD-RW. I think I still have it in a box somewhere, but it's long since become unreadable.
I am pretty satisfied with 98SE on my 200~233mmx systems - but I do kill active desktop and perform some cleanup operations... else it's crap 😵
I am also using custom batch files and custom 98SE setup script for these 🤣🤣🤣
The speed appeal of 95 is interesting though, might re-visit it as well!
I am pretty satisfied with 98SE on my 200~233mmx systems - but I do kill active desktop and perform some cleanup operations... else it's crap 😵
I am also using custom batch files and custom 98SE setup script for these 🤣🤣🤣
The speed appeal of 95 is interesting though, might re-visit it as well!
please share.. i recently installed 98SE on my 233mmx build and it's irritating to say the least and a bit on the slow side. I honestly don't remember what machine i originally installed 98SE on back in the day, maybe it was a K62.
^ well, my "script" does many changes and installs stuff that are chosen for me , for example it sets my region/timezone, installs some utils I use, installs my folder view preferences, my favorites, some custom cursors, my preferred sound scheme, directx8.2 , wing libraries, alter start menu, hide icons, remove programs, remove warnings when opening program files folder, etc... it is supposed to be ran after 98SE fresh install, IE6 SP1 and unofficial SP2
For me the biggest boost was disabling active desktop. Unofficial SP2 also has some speed boost options for systems with more than 64MB of ram so I also select these as my p1 has 128MB.
Here are some things that are generic enough to make sense:
CLEANUP.BAT edit as needed
1@echo off 2rem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3rem these kill folders webview 4rem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 5attrib -h c:\progra~1\desktop.ini 6rem del c:\progra~1\desktop.ini 7ren c:\progra~1\desktop.ini desktop.nin 8attrib -h c:\progra~1\folder.htt 9rem del c:\progra~1\folder.htt 10ren c:\progra~1\folder.htt folder.thh 11attrib -h c:\windows\desktop.ini 12rem del c:\windows\desktop.ini 13ren c:\windows\desktop.ini desktop.nin 14attrib -h c:\windows\folder.htt 15rem del c:\windows\folder.htt 16ren c:\windows\folder.htt folder.thh 17attrib -h c:\windows\system\desktop.ini 18rem del c:\windows\system\desktop.ini 19ren c:\windows\system\desktop.ini desktop.nin 20attrib -h c:\windows\system\folder.htt 21rem del c:\windows\system\folder.htt 22ren c:\windows\system\folder.htt folder.thh 23attrib -h c:\windows\system32\desktop.ini 24rem del c:\windows\system32\desktop.ini 25ren c:\windows\system32\desktop.ini desktop.nin 26attrib -h c:\windows\system32\folder.htt 27rem del c:\windows\system32\folder.htt 28ren c:\windows\system32\folder.htt folder.thh 29ren c:\windows\web web! 30rem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 31rem these remove icons and programs I don't like 32rem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 33del c:\windows\alluse~1\desktop\connec~1.lnk 34attrib -r c:\windows\desktop\outloo~1.lnk 35del c:\windows\desktop\outloo~1.lnk 36del %windir%\startm~1\programs\outloo~1.lnk 37del c:\windows\desktop\regist~1.lnk 38deltree /Y c:\progra~1\online~1 39deltree /Y c:\progra~1\netmee~1 40deltree /Y c:\progra~1\chat 41deltree /y c:\progra~1\outloo~1 42attrib -r %windir%\applic~1\micros~1\intern~1\quickl~1\launch~1.lnk 43del %windir%\applic~1\micros~1\intern~1\quickl~1\launch~1.lnk 44del %windir%\sendto\mailre~1.map 45rem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 46rem this calls the registry alterations 47rem ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 48regedit /s cleanup.reg
CLEANUP.REG edit as needed
1REGEDIT4 2 3;sets CABs location 4 5[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup] 6"SourcePath"="C:\\_RES\\CABS98\\" 7 8;sets folder view options 9 10[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced] 11"Hidden"=dword:00000001 12"ShowCompColor"=dword:00000000 13"HideFileExt"=dword:00000000 14"DontPrettyPath"=dword:00000000 15"ShowInfoTip"=dword:00000001 16"HideIcons"=dword:00000000 17"ShowAttribCol"=dword:00000000 18"MapNetDrvBtn"=dword:00000001 19"ClassicViewState"=dword:00000000 20"CheckedSCDlg"=dword:00000001 21 22;removes Setup MSN Internet Access icon from desktop 23 24[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{88667D10-10F0-11D0-8150-00AA00BF8457}] 25@="Setup MSN Internet Access" 26 27;removes Active Desktop references 28 29[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] 30"NoActiveDesktop"=hex:01,00,00,00 31 32[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] 33"NoSetActiveDesktop"=dword:00000001 34 35;hides LogOff option in start menu 36 37[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] 38"NoLogoff"=dword:00000001 39 40;removes Task Scheduler from windows startup 41 42[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices] 43"SchedulingAgent"="C:\\WINDOWS\\SYSTEM\\mstask.exe" 44 45;enables "Show windows contents while dragging" 46 47[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop] 48"DragFullWindows"="1" 49 50;removes useless "new" items from right-click menu 51 52[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.wav\ShellNew] 53"FileName"="sndrec.wav" 54 55[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.UDL\ShellNew] 56@="MSDASC" 57"Data"=hex:ff,fe,5b,00,6f,00,6c,00,65,00,64,00,62,00,5d,00,0d,00,0a,00,3b,00,\ 58 20,00,45,00,76,00,65,00,72,00,79,00,74,00,68,00,69,00,6e,00,67,00,20,00,61,\ 59 00,66,00,74,00,65,00,72,00,20,00,74,00,68,00,69,00,73,00,20,00,6c,00,69,00,\ 60 6e,00,65,00,20,00,69,00,73,00,20,00,61,00,6e,00,20,00,4f,00,4c,00,45,00,20,\
…Show last 136 lines
61 00,44,00,42,00,20,00,69,00,6e,00,69,00,74,00,73,00,74,00,72,00,69,00,6e,00,\ 62 67,00,0d,00,0a,00,50,00,52,00,4f,00,56,00,49,00,44,00,45,00,52,00,3d,00,6d,\ 63 00,73,00,64,00,61,00,73,00,71,00,6c,00,3b,00,0d,00,0a,00 64 65[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.bmp\ShellNew] 66"NullFile"="" 67 68;remove Find->On the Internet and Find->People from start menu 69 70[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FindExtensions\Static\WebSearch\0] 71@="On the &Internet..." 72"LocalizedString"="@browselc.dll,-13060" 73 74[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FindExtensions\Static\WabFind\0] 75@="&People..." 76 77;Add a Menu Option Copy to Folder 78 79[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Copy To] 80@="{C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}" 81 82;Add a Menu Option Move to Folder 83 84[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Move To] 85@="{C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}" 86 87;Hide Favorites Menu 88 89[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] 90"NoFavoritesMenu"=dword:00000001 91 92;Disable the recording of an entry into "Recent Documents" option of Start Menu 93 94[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] 95"NoRecentDocsHistory"=dword:00000001 96 97;Disable Display Control on ‘Link to Windows Update’ Item from the Start menu 98 99[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer] 100"NoWindowsUpdate"=dword:00000001 101 102;remove Scheduled Tasks and Web Folders from My Computer 103 104[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D87-00AA0060F5BF}] 105@="Scheduled Tasks" 106 107[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\MyComputer\NameSpace\{BDEADF00-C265-11d0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}] 108@="Web Folders" 109 110;altering system sounds 111 112[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating] 113@="" 114 115[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.current] 116@="" 117 118[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.default] 119@="" 120 121 122[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemAsterisk] 123 124[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemAsterisk\.Default] 125@="" 126 127[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemAsterisk\.Current] 128@="" 129 130[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemExclamation] 131 132[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemExclamation\.Default] 133@="" 134 135[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemExclamation\.Current] 136@="" 137 138[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemHand] 139 140[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemHand\.Default] 141@="" 142 143[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemHand\.Current] 144@="" 145 146[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemQuestion] 147 148[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemQuestion\.Default] 149@="C:\\WINDOWS\\media\\notify.wav" 150 151[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\SystemQuestion\.Current] 152@="C:\\WINDOWS\\media\\notify.wav" 153 154[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\MailBeep] 155 156[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\MailBeep\.Default] 157@="" 158 159[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\.Default\MailBeep\.Current] 160@="" 161 162;auto-logon assumes TWEAK-UI is installed 163 164[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\TweakUI] 165"DisplayName"="Tweak UI" 166"UninstallString"="C:\\WINDOWS\\rundll.exe setupx.dll,InstallHinfSection DefaultUninstall 4 C:\\WINDOWS\\Inf\\Tweakui.Inf" 167 168[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run] 169"Tweak UI"="RUNDLL32.EXE TWEAKUI.CPL,TweakMeUp" 170 171[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunServices] 172"Tweak UI"="RUNDLL32.EXE TWEAKUI.CPL,TweakLogon" 173 174[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] 175"DefaultUserName"="user98" 176"AutoAdminLogon"="1" 177 178;enables metapad's wordwarp option 179 180[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\metapad] 181"m_WordWrap"=dword:00000001 182 183;disables IE6 annoying update notifications 184 185[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main] 186"NoUpdateCheck"=dword:00000001 187 188;changes regional settings 189 190[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\International] 191"Locale"="00000408" 192"sCurrency"="€" 193"sTimeFormat"="HH:mm:ss" 194"iTime"="1" 195"iTLZero"="1"
AGAIN, these work for me and my install - I cannot guarantee success with other systems!!!!
Wow, I would never trust a new installation to a script - I'm too paranoid!
I like to do everything manually, and tailor each particular machine to my specifications, in order to get it just the way I want it and so I know exactly what went into the process every step of the way.
^ well this is part of my script tailored to my needs 🤣
I have even slipstreamed some apps and IE6 SP1 in my windows installation , you can do many things if you have the patience!
My only complaints have to do with the UI lacking some features I commonly use... such as "open with" in the context menu for a file, or an obvious way to change file associations. I've heard about TweakUI, perhaps it can help with that.
Hi, was lurking around and thought I'd chime in...
You can get the "Open With" context menu item for all files with the following REG file (if you didn't install Windows in the default location, edit accordingly):
After importing it, run REGEDIT and delete the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Unknown\shell\openas key, otherwise the "Open With" menu item will appear twice in places where it appeared before (e.g. files of unknown types). (Deleting keys via REG file didn't work on 95 RTM when I tried.)
It curiously appears above the "Open" item where that's present, and certain non-shortcut desktop icons (e.g. Inbox, Internet Explorer) will have it even though it's useless there, but it doesn't seem to affect the default actions for known file types and works nicely. The "Always use this program" box will even be unchecked by default for files of known types.
There should be a "File Types" tab in the Explorer's Options dialog (View menu -> Options) where you can edit file types.
While on the subject of tweaks to the original Explorer shell, you might also like this (page with screenshots here), a program that adds a Quick Launch bar to the original 95 taskbar, IE not required. It works differently from the IE shell's Quick Launch bar (items are stored in the registry; a configuration dialog is used to add items) but it does the job. Doesn't work on NT 4.0, sadly (causes Explorer to crash). I'm planning to try writing my own program to do this that would work more like the IE version and work on 95 and NT 4; if the likes of TClockEx can work on both, why not a Quick Launch bar?